


careful, don't run out of time

by ratbrain



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28080564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratbrain/pseuds/ratbrain
Summary: Jonny dies on a nameless backwater asteroid, completely alone. Or, at least, that’s what he thinks.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville/Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	careful, don't run out of time

Jonny dies on a nameless backwater asteroid, completely alone. Or, at least, that’s what he thinks. 

When talking about someone who’s been alive for centuries, it does sound a bit ironic to say that when he dies, things would have been better if he’d only had a little more time. But then again, what’s a better summation of life than something cut short at the wrong time? Almost no one dies when they’re supposed to, and even the notion of there being a proper place and time is just a thing we tell ourselves so we feel less terrible about our losses. We comfort ourselves by saying they had a long time to do everything that they needed, and when they didn’t we reminisce on what they did do with what little time they had. But it isn’t true. There could always be more that they could have done if only they hadn’t died. 

When Gunpowder Tim first feels his aim go wary, he knows exactly what is happening. Sure, it’s only by a few millimeters, but it doesn’t matter. The realization settles in him with a grim presence. He isn’t happy, nor is he sad. He just...is. It takes him a while to come to terms with mortality, having not thought about it for centuries. He thinks of the other mechanisms killing him out of fun or boredom or anger. He thinks about those few times that he thought surely, _surely_ this would be the one to get him. Jonny’s knife through his heart, Marius’ strangling him, and he would wonder if that would be his end. He thinks of the deep sleeps in between regeneration, and wonders if that’s what death will be like. One long sleep. But before he meets it, there’s one thing he wants to do. 

Tim and Jonny hadn’t left off on any sort of bad terms. They had just kind of drifted apart. They had known of their feelings for each other, sure, but they were never really acted upon in ways that weren’t physical. Tim had never even told Jonny he loved him. Of course it went unspoken and he never felt he had to, but he knew that if he was going to die he wasn’t going to do it without saying it. 

Finding Jonny proved to be rather easy. After all, he did enjoy making a name for himself on every planet he visited, and when an old woman scowls at the mention of Jonny’s name, Tim smiles because he knows she must know where he is. Granted, he does have to apologize for Jonny brutally slaughtering her kids because they were annoying, but she gives him the planet Jonny had said he would be going to. 

Tim wondered if Jonny could die now. As he flew over to the planet, he wondered if maybe Jonny was already dead. He tried to push those thoughts out of his head as best he could, but they found a way to push through whatever attempt he used at distracting himself. 

He thought back to when he first met Jonny. To say that he looked younger wasn’t exactly true, because after all they didn’t age. But he did look...more innocent? He’d already been immortal for a while before he met Tim, and already had that chaotic energy about him. Tim honestly believed that the chaotic energy had always been there, immortal or not. So he hadn’t looked younger, but maybe less experienced.

_He’d sauntered right up to Tim, silver dog tag glowing in the moon's light._

_“Who the fuck are you?” He asked._

_“First name Gunpowder, last name Tim,” He answered, his voice still holding all of the enthusiasm of a young soldier who hasn’t yet seen war._

_“You’re kidding, right?”_

_“No? What’s your name?”_

_“Last name d’Ville, first name Jonny.”_

_“Well, that’s not much better. Who the hell’s last name is d’Ville?”_

_“One, fuck you I chose it. Two, who the fuck names their kid Gunpowder?”_

_His words were harsh, his tone critical and biting. But what Tim had noticed was his smile as he spoke. His smile was everything his voice wasn’t, warm and inviting although with a bit of chaos tinged around its edges. Tim had known from that moment that they were going to be very close._

Tim sees the bar, and he just knows Jonny is in there. The asteroid isn’t exactly spacious as far as asteroids go, but even if it was everything about this place just screamed ‘Jonny’. The slightly caving in roof, the boarded up windows, the hum of the music that Tim could hear from outside. Yeah, there was no doubt in his mind that Jonny was inside. 

He pushes open the door, and Jonny sits at the bar, hunched over a drink. 

_Finding something in Jonny’s room had always been difficult, because you had to know your way around the sea of dirty clothes piled up in random spots on the floor. Tim shoves over a small stack of belts and sees underneath them a small jar filled with a greenish liquid. He holds it up and looks to Jonny with a questioning expression._

_“Oh that’s piss,” Jonny says._

_Tim’s eyes widen in horror as he nearly drops the jar, to which Jonny starts hysterical laughing._

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! The opportunity was too good to pass up. Please tell me you didn’t actually believe me. You know what, on second thought I’m gonna make that a rhetorical question, I don’t want to know if you actually thought I was capable of that or not. Anyways, what you’re holding Tim is a jar of Syndrean whiskey. I must’ve gotten it-”_

As he watches from the corner, he realizes how tired Jonny looks. They don’t need sleep, per say, immortal or not (he hadn’t needed to sleep once on the two day journey) but he wants to ask Jonny the last time he slept. Wants to gently run a hand through his hair, which has grown back out from the last time he saw it into a semi long style again, and tell him gently that he should get some sleep like he used to do. Only in private, though. If he ever tried something like that in front of the crew he had no doubt that Jonny wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in his brain. But in private?

 _“Jonny, when’s the last time you’ve slept?” Tim asks, looking down at Jonny who is_ _sitting on the bed beneath him. Jonny leans forward gently, so that his head is resting against Tim’s hip. Tim sighs as he brings a hand down to rest on Jonny’s back._

_“I dunno. Not like it matters anyways.”_

_“I know, but you don’t look too good.”_

_“Aren’t you a sweetheart.” Jonny says flatly._

_“You know what I mean,” Tim smiles as he says this, and gently smacks the side of Jonny’s head, “seriously, why don’t you get some sleep?”_

_Jonny sighs, and behind the noise is decades of trauma that would surely keep anyone up for the rest of their lives._

_“It’s hard,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically weak._

_“I know, Jonny, I know,” Tim says, and he thinks painfully of Bertie. Bertie shivering beside him under the lead sheet, still sick from the gas and underneath it all homesick. Tim tries to be comforting now like he hoped he was then, but Bertie’s another one he never got to tell everything to before he ran out of time._

_“Get some rest, Jonny. I’ll stay here with you.”_

_“You won’t leave?”_

_“Never. I promise.”_

Jonny downs the drink and orders another, and it is then that the man next to him shows issue with something he said. From where he’s sitting, Tim can only smile. This scene is all too familiar, Jonny saying something stupid and offensive and somebody being, surprise, offended. It was all too common on the Aurora, and most mornings Tim would have to casually step over Jonny’s corpse on his way to get breakfast. After his first few years with the mechanisms he didn’t even ask what Jonny had said anymore, just casually accepted it and went about his life.

The man breaks a glass bottle against the bar and stabs it through Jonny’s heart and Tim gasps. 

He doesn’t breathe once as he watches the entire scene unfold. It feels like both an eternity and an instant. Jonny’s head is thrown backwards with the impact, and for a few brief seconds Tim can see him sitting by the fireside on the surface of the moon, screaming excitedly into the night. But the look on his face is something Tim has never seen before. Jonny knows something, there’s realization clear on his face. He knows something and he’s happy about it. He looks young again, and with a brief laugh he collapses onto the floor. 

Tim knows Jonny's dead. As he rushes over and picks up the limp body he tries to tell himself that he’s just regenerating, that he can still have a chance to say what he needs to say. But he knows it’s not true. Jonny’s body is so cold in his arms. He takes off his jacket and wraps it around the body, though he knows it does no good.

_"What the fuck Jonny?" he asks, though there's no real harshness to his tone, just a bit of annoyance._

_"What's the matter, dear Gunpowder?" Jonny says smugly, and Tim smiles with the temptation to wrestle him to the ground._

_"That's my jacket!"_

_"Really? Are you sure?"_

_"Yes, Jonny, now give it back."_

_"Hmm, no. I don't think I will," Jonny says with a smile, and that's the final straw._

_"Oh I'm gonna get you!" Tim says, lunging at Jonny, who dodges his attack and takes off down the hallway._

_"Jacket_ _thief!" Tim cries as he chases Jonny down the hallway, Jonny's wicked laugh echoing in his ears. He knows he won't tell him, but he's only chasing him to keep up an image amongst the crew, and to have an excuse to incite violence. He actually thinks Jonny looks adorable in his jacket._

The rest of the patrons might be gathered around him, might be minding their own business. They might even be yelling at him, telling him angrily to get the fuck out. He just doesn’t know. 

Tim and Jonny had centuries together, yet no time at all.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write sad things, however I am really going through it and had a lot of feelings and surprise death to the mechs is surprisingly easy to protect your anger at mortality on to


End file.
